Queries and Answers. 399 



u The entomologist, wherever he may reside, cannot fail to 

 regret that the celebrated authors of the Introduction to Ento- 

 mology should have omitted to give us the genera of insects, 

 with their types and characters, brought up to the present 

 day. We have now not only to wade through the valuable 

 system of Latreille, but a hundred other works, to discover 

 what they were so well qualified to lay before us in a connected 

 form. At present, your correspondent cannot do better than 

 follow the plan I have long adopted. Let him procure or copy 

 the article " Entomology," written by Leach for Brewster's 

 Edinburgh Encyclopaedia ; and, after interleaving it, insert all 

 the published genera and divisions, with a short reference to 

 their authors, and an illustrative figure. [We know an emi- 

 nent naturalist who collects all the figures he can, and traces 

 copies of those not to be otherwise acquired, of subjects in the 

 departments of natural history which he studies.] He may 

 then, in an instant, turn to any group of insects which have 

 been separated from their congeners by the learned. But still 

 a library of no mean value is requisite for his use. It is to be 

 hoped Mr. Kirby will still undertake the task, difficult and 

 tiresome as it must be, and prepare a supplement, which the 

 book already requires. We should then see his Introduction 

 translated in foreign countries, and serving to fix the termino- 

 logy of our favourite science. I would not, however, be sup- 

 posed to detract from the merits of this unrivalled work : it 

 is, indeed, a most remarkable memorial of labour, perse- 

 verance, and genius ; to Mr. Kirby, as a clergyman, it is 

 particularly creditable. It forms a series of sermons on the 

 wisdom and works of God, better calculated than any thing I 

 know to raise our gratitude and admiration of the Creator, 

 and to put to silence the unfounded accusations and the mad 

 clamour of infidelity. — \_Lansdown Guilding. St. Vincent^ 

 May 1. 1830.] 



Mr. Guilding had noted the following remark on the men- 

 tion, in II. 368., of certain " Leaf Insects." " The insects 

 which most resemble the leaves and stalks of plants are the 

 Mantidae and Phasmadae ; but I forbear enumerating any 

 particular instances, till I send to the conductor my com- 

 mentary on the work of Kirby and Spence." The latter por- 

 tion of this remark shows that Mr. Guilding had purposed 

 the producing of a commentary. 



A Question on the Possibility of adtivating the Rice Plant in 

 Germany. — In Loudon's Encyclopaedia of Plants, p. 288., it 

 is stated that rice is cultivated in Westphalia ; which, to my- 

 self at least, who have not visited that part of Germany, is a 



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